Hi Carnavalshop,
I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
Here’s an excerpt from the plugin documentation:
- The minified cache files will be stored in sub-directories of your wp-content folder: “/wp-content/cache/rshcp/css/” and “/wp-content/cache/rshcp/js/”. There will be a lot of files in these directories…that’s ok…these are the cache files. That means everything is working.
- There will be two versions of each page’s CSS and JS files…one with “min” in the name, and one with “raw”. The “min” file is what gets used on your page, and the “raw” file is uncompressed file kept to use as a reference by the plugin so it knows when the code has changed.
- This plugin creates the minified cache files for JS and CSS the first time someone visits a page. They then get replaced any time JavaScript or CSS files change. If they’re not changed, they will be cached for 24 hours, and then refreshed, and cached again.
Each page of your site has a unique combination of JS and CSS files it calls, based on what plugins you’re using, and what theme you’re using. RS Head Cleaner Plus and RS Head Cleaner Lite do several things with these: First, they combine all of the JS into one file, and all of the CSS into one. Then these are minified and cached. When they are cached, there are 2 JS and 2 CSS files created for each page of your site (see above). When necessary the RS Head Cleaner Plus plugin will create an additional JS file that it places in the head for scripts that shouldn’t be moved to the footer. So there will also be a “min” and “raw” file for that. This all happens the first time each page is accessed (and then again when the cache files are refreshed, but they overwrite the same files). The only way the number of files grows is when a page that hasn’t been accessed is accessed for the first time. From then on, there will always be 2 CSS and 2 JS files for this page.
I believe you have the mistaken assumption that new files are created endlessly for the site based on date. This is simply not true. The files are synced up with specific pages and posts of the site, and there can only ever be 2 CSS and 2 (or 4) JS files for each page of the site. So if you see more files being created, it just means more pages of your site are being accessed for the first time. but there is a finite number of files that will be created for each page.
If you are getting 4 GB of files, then it means there is a problem with how you are managing your site. Even a large site should not be doing that. In the case mentioned above yours at the beginning of this thread, the large file size was caused by a backup plugin backing up the cache directories. If you’re using plugin to back up your site, make sure you are setting it to exclude your cache directories.
If you want to delete the cache just deactivate and reactivate the plugin. It will clean out the cache each time this happens.
Since you are using WP Fastest Cache, it will be important that you do not use the JS and CSS minification feature on that plugin. You do not want to use minification on more than one plugin at the same time. Also, I’d recommend not clearing your cache so often.
I hope this helps. Please read through the plugin documentation for more info. If you need further help, please submit a support request and we’ll be happy to help you out.
– Scott
